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November 28, 2009

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Letter: Honorable wars have inspirational photos

Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2007 | 7:09 a.m.

In the Feb. 11 Las Vegas Sun, military historian Theodore Gatchel commented on photos of past wars and speculates on what sort of historical pictures will remind us of our current war in Iraq.

He seems to suggest that a nation's attitude about a war, and therefore history, is determined by the pictures it views. I believe it is the other way around. The pictures we end up viewing of a war are the result of the real or imagined reasons we use to send our troops into battle, and if the war was won or lost.

To remind us of World War II, we have noble pictures of our soldiers because they engaged an enemy who was in the process of conquering nations and enslaving their people. And, of course, we won the war.

The lack of inspirational pictures from Vietnam can be traced to the realization that we were not justified in being there. And, of course, we lost the war. Our unnecessary fight against communism was actually an effort to subvert an internal, nationalistic movement. We finally realized that falsehoods and manipulation by our leaders weren't reason enough to mount the effort needed to force our will on the Vietnamese people.

Does anyone really expect that we will cherish and revere noble pictures of our misadventure in Iraq?

Ed Hayes, Las Vegas

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